I am Anders Karlsson, and I have been working in the RDBMS industry for many, possibly too many, years. In this blog, I write about my thoughts on RDBMS technology, happenings and industry, and also on any wild ideas around that I might think up after a few beers.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Where is the Exit.. Pleeease!

It might well be me not being in a good mood today. I really should be in a good mood, spring is here, sort of, the sun is shining, and I've started to look forward to waking up the MG and taking it for it's first round for the year!

But no, something got in the way of that. My #1 culprit is Skype but there are more of them, many of them these kinds of chat, social networking style applications. Msn is another of these annoying puppies, mainly on Windows, this is a disease that has yet to spread in the world of Linux that is has on Windows. Come on now, Microsoft, you put some many rules and regulations on a piece of software that is to be certified to run on Windows, why can't you require them to also have an Exit function? Is that something that is difficult?

In Skype you just cannot exit the application. I do not understand why. I could possibly accept it if there wasn't a reason to ever restart or exit skype, but that is not the case. Running Skype on a laptop where you move it from one network connection to the other (i.e. take the computer from the office and home into the docking station), means that Skype gets confused. It runs, but is confused, usually showing that it is live and connected, when it is not. A restart will fix that. But that restart has to be done by opening the Task Manager. If you, for the same reason, change audio equipment used for Skype (like a USB based headset in the office, and a normal Audio headset at home), the same thing happens.

Please get the Exit menu option back, or rather get us an Exit that will really Exit the application. In Skype, "Exit" means "Minimize the window". What the heck is THAT? I do not want more applications like this, I want ALL applications that are started manually by the user to also be able to shut down with a menu option. I don't mind using Task Manager, but I don't understand why I should have to. Is this a difficult thing to implement, an Exit function? Really?

I typically close apps with alt+f4 from the kbd, and if that fails I click the little cross icon (typically in the right upper corner of the window). My assumption is that this will actually cleanly shut down the app and haven't found any issues indicating otherwise.

Right! That one worked. Which leans to the question why there is a feature available as a taskbar quick access command, but not in the man application Window? Weeeird. Hingo: Agree. I like what Skype does, but it really IS bloated, and has recently shown bugs and weird behavior that wasn't there before. Roland: Alt-F¤ will, in Skype, just minimize the Window, not exit the applicaton. Strange stuff... Linux.Jedi: I agree, that seems like a really bad idea...

@Anders .. it is simply Windows standard with all programs running as 'tray applets' that you 'exit' from the context menu. Your bad I think!

Also most (or a lot at least) windows applicatiosn are handled most efficiently from context menu's (if you don't use keyboard shortcuts). Context menus are all over. In almost every Windows program you can right-click anywhere and open a context menu.

No, I do not agree. There sure is a tray applet for Skype, but my main point opf action with Skype is the main Window. For example, Thunderbird shows a tray icon, but I can still exit it by using File->Exit. Now, in some cases, some program more or less ONLY run as tray icons, and in these cases it is fair that I communicate with through that icon. Spotify also behaves like Thunderbird. So any program with a UI beyond a Task-bar dialog really should be able to exit with a Alt-F¤, Window Close, File-Exit or something, whatever.